I was a little premature in my last post there. The system landed. The first Rainfall Warning this season. I was out running in it, until I realized that I am not Murakami and better get home before I perish. A woman smoking a ciggarette let out a yelp in Spanish as she passed me under a tree that was probably not complimentary.

*

In woodwork reports. I completed my first bookshelf. Not without its challenges namely I accidentally gave it a waistline and had to go back and cut every single shelf I’d attached about 2cm less. One of the shelves was v distressed by my accidental waistlining and A Line Skirt approach to book shelves. I forgot that top part was 3 cm or so bigger on account of the sides and made all the shelves identical.

Fear not this woodwork pirate will not make that mistake again!

Unfortunately my left forearm went into a complete muscular freefall after screwing in 10 + screws, unscrewing them all and rescrewing them all. My eyelid is also unhappy at my treating it like a knee and not covering it amidst the rising sawdust. And the saw bounced off the chair and inserted itself into my finger decoratively enough. But you have to take your wounds when engaged in off the wall spruce enterprises.

But they are now complete and very handsome. Even if there are still a few dubious qualities to their construction.

Today, Wednesday, is our gloomiest day of the Autumnal season. A storm system has been moving down the North West coast, but there does not seem to be any sign of it striking us here. However, in some kind of distant empathy, the clouds have certainly kept the curtains still and closed on us today.

The season is becoming cosy and atmospheric in the delightfully melancholic and miserable manner it can muster. Although it gave way only a day or two again to a rare blast of sunshine.  The temperatures have no dipped yet tho’, so it’s still a warm hangover situation. The dreaded 10 and below will join us soon enough, along with the thermals.

Weather is becoming its own literature here.

Day 2 of the autumnal shift in our weather. Made my first hot water bottle and am so tempted to turn on the heat, but will hold out for the October traditional switching on at the fuse box.

I have nearly finished my first free standing bookshelf. I did most of the attaching while listening to a lively podcast of Jenny Diski being interviewed about her up and coming New Yorker piece on shoplifting. (recommend both the podcast and the piece, links to follow)

I am certain the invocation of Zola helped guide the number six sized wood screws.

First Autumn (Fall) rain event. Not to be confused with numerous August rain events. This one includes a temperature drop and at 3pm a growl of grey light around us that suggested evening.

Did I just see lightning? I think so.

*

6 more cans of peaches canned, processing was briefly interrupted to go and get a tattoo. I sat knitting waiting for the tattooist to arrive and listened to the stories floating about the parlour. One involved a peculiar tale of midget phobia. The tattoo was an enjoyable process, not nearly as painful as I’d envisioned. (Thanks also to Mr Alexander Chee’s reassuring words) Scratchy and pitches of intermittent pain for certain. I am very happy with it and it with me. Some cherry blossoms might join it someday or those fantastic weather symbols of this morning. I like the idea of carrying my own skin-bound forecast.

Saturday morning treat: Weather symbols of Japan. 

My favourite is fog

Heavy thunderstorm has a solid charm about it too

I was just thinking about the devaluation of labour and the devaluation of being a reader and wondering whether or where the two intersect or not.

A friend recently shared the analogy that previously there were authors/authorship and now the entire world’s an author. This makes sense because I firmly believe that technology will focus more and more on finding our way through and around information (and possibly out from). An international, transglobal virtual sorting office.

*

The City of Vancouver have introduced these VIVA seating areas * named parallel parking seating. They are made of lovely lumber and are places for the public to plop down and sit. At first I thought they were bicycle parking zones because of the word parallel parking, but on closer inspection and sitting they are benches with small coffee tables.

I’ve only seen one, it was placed right outside a coffee shop and seemed situated to serve the coffee shop dwellers more than random pedestrians. However it was dark and we were the only people sitting on it. It will be interesting to see where they pop up. I think they’re quite an inviting idea.  Especially if they’d rolled them out months ago when you weren’t going to risk goose pimples and drenching to sit on them. But generally they indicate positive use of public spaces, encouraging people to sit and natter or rest and read. Plus the lumber smells nice.

* I since learned it’s only one and it’s called a “modular deck”..

Yesterday we had the first bruise of a temperature drop. I felt it on my knees.

At exactly 5.55pm today we had absolute confirmation of a seasonal shift, a gale blew around my legs and I remarked on this with two other chilly looking women at the traffic lights.

The seasonal change was abrupt. It took place in a very noticeable 60 minutes and the duration of a cup of tea with Ita.  Ita’s tea was undrinkable, mine wasn’t too bad. The distance between two teabags and two seasons felt keenly there.

It is now very dark outside. Autumn is with us. I am taking out the hot water bottles and thinking of hot cider recipes.

*

I have read so much this week on renal ultrasounds and renal function that I could participate in a quiz show on the topic. Did you know for example that your right kidney is lower than your left kidney? And on to duplex, duplicates, duplicity. Renal aaah.

A newspaper story yesterday detailed the changing shape of the IKEA bookshelf, as testament to the matter that our lives are increasingly devoid of books. Au contraire! What’s actually happening is people are embracing the Japanese handsaw and waking up the fact IKEA shelves are God awful creations. Bockety and bulky.

Last week I turned left to go onto a highway and was surprised to find myself in a car park, none other than the IKEA car park. Peckish, I went in for a plate of chicken and Swedish chocolates. The furniture seems so ugly in IKEA once you’ve gotten up close with planks of wood and a handsaw. Even a basic spruce back yard plank has more appeal. But it’s so quick and easy people will protest. It’s not quick though — it’s a beeping nightmare! There’s always some dowel that doesn’t quite fit or you place the stuff back to front. Whereas making simple custom sized bookshelves, …well I’ll let you know once I’ve made a free-standing set.

I’ve made many that hang on the walls and I just custom made a very small free standing set that are dandy. It was not at all difficult and I have no aptitude for such things.

I was also noticing how unpioneering IKEA have been in the area of washing lines — most lacking. In the area of literature they publish a catalogue and nearly all their instructions have no words included. Hmmm.

Canning forecast

Round 2 peach canners of the world unite…

During round 1, I canned 4 peaches and it took me three hours, alone.

Round 2 saw the entry to the ring of the small male (as blancher) the productivity rose to a shocking 12 peaches in one and a half hours.

Round 2 was certainly a more disco affair: water, sugar, teatowels, peach skins, pans, spoons everywhere.

Ratio of burns was also down 75 percent.

I did not think a kettle could give me as much joy as my new kettle has managed. It has a wonderful disco blue light on it and is made of glass. Thus the water dances about inside, visible to the naked eye. Even the sound of the water boiling (more of a rushing sound) is pleasing. Plus it turns off, I have expired on whistling kettles that summon me to them.

I will say I have always had a very healthy regard for the kettle, but this new sneaking joy, watching and hearing it I have not previously known.

*

I have just canned my first round of peaches. I will not admit the numbers as they are embarrassingly small quantity in the length of time some people could build a house. It is a process and the canner is so big I can practically fit inside it, so if all else fails I may just live in it. I am not quite sure why I get so enthused for domestic endeavours I am entirely unsuited to.  It might have been more sensible to find a novel which had a woman canning in it and to experience it vicariously.

Oiche maith from Sleepless in Peachland here.